Portland City Hall braces for crowds as fluoride hearing nears

The Portland City Council is scheduled to hear Commissioner Randy Leonard’s fluoride proposal at 2 p.m. Thursday.

But security guards and other City Hall staffers were busy Thursday morning preparing for crowds that could rival those at public meetings for other controversial topics, including the 2009 hearing to rename 39th Avenue for Cesar Chavez and the 2011 hearing regarding the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Officials were setting up overflow rooms, creating sign-in sheets and asking early arrivals to line up according to whether they supported or opposed Portland’s fluoridation effort.

By 11 a.m. several dozen people had gathered outside City Hall, though the city clerk’s office won’t release the sign-in sheet until noon.